Above all else, I talk to strangers. I’ve done it since I was a kid. I’ll listen to anyone, and I’ll listen closely.

I write, too. I’m getting better at it.

A lifelong enthusiasm for digging.

When I was eight, I dug a four-foot-deep pit in my parents’ yard and found a survey marker from the late 19th century. A decade later, I considered a career as an archivist, spending the better part of two years hunting down long-forgotten records of Muslim convert communities in the mid-20th century rural South. These days, I’m a reporter, and I hope to remain a reporter for many years to come. I still enjoy the type of digging that involves shovels, but I don’t get many chances to do that anymore.

Criminal Justice

From police union contract negotiations to prison air conditioning systems, I know how to seek out the stories about police, prosecutors, prisons and public defenders that will otherwise slip through the cracks.

Housing

I have covered housing policy, zoning and homelessness at the state and local level, including the practical limitations of annual point-in-time counts and the gradual embrace of urban density by struggling small cities.

Addiction

In Seattle, I revealed the disconnect between jail-based medication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorder, and in Delaware, I amplified the voices of fentanyl users attempting to adapt to the rise of Xylazine.